Stars align for treasure
THE American Theatre Wing honored Cicely Ty
son same time the American voter wing watched
Hillary and Donnery. Presenter Spike Lee, who makes Lester Holt turn into Sleepy the Dwarf, told me: “Cicely’s a treasure.” Ever work with her? “No.”
Then: “I’m starting my ‘She’s Gotta Have It’ as a 10-part series for Netflix. Directing them all. We’ll shoot in Planet Brooklyn. Fort Greene, DUMBO, door-die Bed-Stuy, everywhere. I’d love to live in Brooklyn, but I can’t.
“Because 4 o’clock in the morning in Brooklyn someone always rang my bell to ask, ‘Spike in?’ Another whoknows would come calling 2 a.m. with, ‘My brother was at P.S. 29 with Spike’ or ‘Listen, I wanna say hello because my uncle taught Spike in Junior High No. 294.’ You can’t stop them so I can’t live there.”
Samuel L. Jackson. In Armani. Wife LaTanya in full-length black and white-beaded Lanvin. Even the price tag glittered. But she wore flats. “Listen, my feet have to be happy.” Their high-class, high-priced ICM agent Toni Howard schlepped Chanel.
Sam: “I must tell you how great the new African American Museum is. We had nothing to explore before. Seeing this history’s important for us. Like the sleeping car our people had to live in to build our railways. That’s still going on today. A young generation may now realize what we’ve given to this country.”
Then: “I’m leaving, LaTanya’s staying. I revere Cicely so I came for redcarpet photos, but my film ‘Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children,’ which opens Friday, is premiering here tonight. I play the villain. I have to be there.”
David Henry Hwang, whose Tonys include “M. Butterfly”: “I’ve written 15 plays. We all end up with some flops. Longhand, over four months my freshman year at Stanford, I wrote my first one. ‘ FOB’ ran at the Public and got me an off-Broadway award. My next ‘Soft Power’ will play in LA.
“I’m with American merican Theatre eatre Wing eight years. I’m board chairman. It’s a pipeline. It ensures longevity to the theater in this country. It’s important. ”nt.”